Friday, February 25, 2011

Everyone in Austin seems to be getting ready for Adepticon but I've got my eyes set on a tournament just a little further down the road. Alamo 40K May 14-15th in San Antonio, Texas. I played there last year and had a blast (tournament held in a drinking hall, nice), although I went 1W-2L-2D on the weekend with my Mantis Warriors. This year I hope to fair a little better which has got me pondering over which Chaplain to take...?

The signature of my Mantis Warriors is a Death Star comprising of a Land Raider Redeemer filled with Assault Terminators led by Kahn. That makes Terminators with Furious Charge and Hit and Run with a character that causes Instant Death on a roll of a 6 to wound in combat. To top the unit off I throw in a Chaplain for fearless and to make sure Kahn hits enough times to land a 6 to wound on the charge.

Cassius has been my go to man for a while because he makes an outstanding body guard with T6 and FNP. Often times I put him in contact with a hidden power fist to suck up any would be instant kill attacks on Kahn. He is also a steal at only +25 points over a standard Chaplain. The problem is that Chaplains only have 3 Attacks when not charging, which leaves something to be desired from an offensive point of view.

Lately however I've considered running a normal Chaplain with Digital Lasers. When Codex: SM first came out I scoffed at this upgrade. +10 points to only re-roll once to wound a turn. Why take that when Lightning Claws can re-roll all to wounds? Well obviously Chaplains can't take LCs and with so few attacks, being able to re-roll once to wound often times turns no kills into one kill, which makes it easily worth the points for a model with S4!

So the question is; do I go for defensive power or offensive power in my Death Star unit? Both have proved to be well worth the investment but I can only choose one.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

About a month ago I had the idea to switch out the melta guns in my two Tactical Squads for plasma guns. To make sure they still had the ability to pop a tank or dreadnought in a tight spot I gave the Sergeants combi-meltas too. This made the squads 15 points more expensive but they offer some impressive fire power if needed on the turn they arrive from reserve!

Monday, February 21, 2011

A couple of weeks ago Rath of Un asked if I could post a tutorial on how I paint my Mantis Warriors. Most recently on my painting table I've been trying to finish a 10 man Assault Squad so here we go!

Step 1:

Over a black prime I apply GW Knarloc Green Foundation as the base coat, being careful to leave a black line around and edges within the armor. Any areas what will be gold later (such as the breast plate eagle and skulls on the helmet, weapons or backpack) as well as the leather pouches and pistol holster are painted Calthan Brown. The metal on the gun and chain sword are painted Boltgun Metal.

Step 2:
I removed the jump pack for easier access to paint the shoulder pads for later on. The helmet lenses are painted Mechrite Red. All the metal areas are Badab Black Washed. The breast plate eagle, as well as all the skulls that were painted brown are now painted Dwarf Bronze. Be sure to leave the inner edges of the eagle brown to give it a shadowed look. Finally all the leather and gold details are given a Devlan Mud Wash.

Step 3:On to the Highlighting stage, almost done! The helmet lenses are highlighted with Blazing Orange. The metal areas are highlighted with Chainmail. The black edges on the chain sword and the pistol are highlighted with Adeptus Battlegrey. The brown details are highlighted with Vermin Brown.

Step 4:

Before gluing the jump pack back on I painted the Assault Marine X onto the shoulder. First I used Iyanden Darksun Foundation for a base coat. On top of the base coat I brighten the Yellow up with Sunburst Yellow. It is important to use the foundation paint first because it would otherwise take a ridiculous number of Sunburst coats over the green.

Step 5:
Finally I highlighted the armor with Scorpion Green before making any final touch ups to the model.

~Can anyone guess what metal model this Assault Marine was before he got a green coat? If you have any other requests for posts please let me know!

Monday, February 14, 2011

In my last post I talked about the army list I would be taking to the 2500pt hobby tournament at my FLAGS over the weekend; well here is how it shook down.

Tournament Rules:

2500pts

max two Heavy Support

min 1 Fast Attack

max 4 Fast Attack

if you take only one Heavy Support and none as Dedicated Transports you get a single re-roll per game turn!

GAME 1

Deployment: Spear Head

Mission: Sieze Ground (5 objectives)

Special Rules: Night Fight for 6 Turns

Bonus: None

Opponent: Stoneychavez (Chaos SM)

My opponent's army had...

Abadon with 4 Khorn terminators riding in Landraider, Summoned Greater Daemon, Khorn Lord with Daemon weapon, 2 rhinos with Khorn Bezerkers, 1 rhino with Plague Marines, 6 MoN bikes and a Defiler. He did not get the special reroll because he had two heavies.

The mission was a lot like the old 3rd and 4th edition night fight mission. Set up in table quarters and then spread out over the whole board going after objectives. Out two armies smashed into each other and took a ton of casualties. On the last turn his Landraider was able to punch through my lines and contest one of my two objectives while my Assault Marines failed to dislodge a unit of Plague Marines off one of his two objectives so game ended in tie. Awesome game against someone I had never played before.

Game Lows and Highs

Low: Sicarius gave one Tactical Squad tank hunters and despite three close range melta shots in the game did not even scratch the land raider! >:(

High: Same Tactical Squad with tank hunters was able to lay low a Defiler with S7 krak grenade!

GAME 2

Deployment: Pitched Battle

Mission: Kill Points

Special Rules: Everything is difficult ground for movement.

Bonus: +3 points for killing an HQ, +1 for killing most expensive unit

Opponent: Wes (Blood Angels)

My opponent had...

Dante, Librarian, 2 jump pack Assault Squads, 1 Assault Squad in Land Raider, death company in razorback, 2 attack bike w/ multi-melta, baal pread, 10 shooty terminators, and vindicator. Again opponent did not have the reroll.

I was pretty upset at the mission of this round. We were encourage to take lots of Fast Attack but in this game those became a liability with all the dangerous terrain checks... oh well. Early on I was up quite a few KPs but soon Dante came to bear and killed Sicarius and about three other KPs. I ended up losing by 3 KPs, ouch.

Game Lows and Highs

Low: I hate Dante; I charged him with Sicarius and my command squad. Sicarius dead and Dante hit and ran away! errrr

High: His Vindicator immobilized its self first turn, unable to get in range for the entire game.

GAME 3

Deployment: Spear Head

Mission: One Objective

Special Rules: Single objective in center of board can be picked up by Troops and moved towards own table corner. All models have Fleet for this game, but cannot run with objective nor ride in a transport.

This was another great game but really, due to my trickery, he had no chance. I managed to pull the objective 24" towards my corner of the board in 6 turns.

Game Lows and Highs

Low: non, awesome game

High: Sicarius gave one tac squad scout. Before the game started I scouted them onto the objective and since I had first turn, I was able to begin moving it towards my side before he even could move. Since his Daemon Prince had fleet now he was able to assault them first turn which was cool but my assault squad made short work of him.

all in all was a great tournament with three really fun games. Even though I sucked it up over all, I had a good time.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

The FLAGS tournament scene in Austin this month promises to be a little more interesting with the edition of a second event, a "hobby tournament". In hopes of inspiring less traditional tournament lists; the following special Force Organizational restrictions will be in place...

2500 pt "hobby tournament"
1) max one Special Character
2) max two Heavy Support
3) minimum one Fast Attack
4) max four Fast Attack
5) Special Rule: if you only take one Heavy Support and none taken as a Dedicated Transport, you gain a free re-roll to be taken at any point each full turn!

I play tested an IG army for the tournament today against Aventine's Lamenters... after nearly being tabled I decided to switch to Space Marines. As far back as I can remember I've been taking Kahn in a Land Raider with an Assault Terminator squad and a large portion of the force out flanking. In hopes of inspiring something new and interesting for myself; Sicarius will be my single special character and I am dropping the Land Raider for the first time since I painted the damn thing.

I am very interested to see how this army plays, especially the special rules form Sicarius. I've never used a command squad before and the only times I've used an Assault Squad it performed terribly. But hell, taking a ton of Space Marines is never bad...

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

I've taken a break from painting Exodite Dragons to get a few models finished in time for a couple local tournaments. This model is done, but still needs its back passengers painted and magnetized.

Added a Wolf Scout head for a little extra flavor for the crazed scout pilot.

The weapon is removable so I can switch it out with the other options (assault cannon, heavy bolter, or heavy flamer). The gunner's foot is also magnetized so he can shift depending on the size of the gun.

The Mantis Warrior Special Character in the IA:10 Badab book gives the army Chapter Tactics: Infiltrate so I figure an on foot command squad would be fun to use. I look forward to painting these soon.